


Seven Days to Sunday

by james



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: First Time, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-15
Updated: 2011-03-15
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake is trying to ask Cougar a very important question. He needs a little help.  A lot of help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Days to Sunday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katemonkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katemonkey/gifts).



Jake walked into the room where Cougar was leaning back in a chair with one foot propped up, knees listing apart at just the perfect angle for Jake to stare. Then not stare, because he wasn't staring, not the staring type, and definitely wasn't willing to risk getting caught staring. And definitely not at Cougar's jeans, his inner thigh, and the crotch where the denim was just staring to wear thin at the bottom of the zipper.

He forced himself to look upwards, at something safer: Cougar's hands. Cougar was sliding a knife back and forth across a whetstone; for a long moment Jake just watched as his left hand moved, gripping the knife, his fingers wrapped around the whetstone firmly. After a moment -- possibly several minutes, Jake wasn't swearing to anything -- Cougar looked up at him, one eyebrow cocked in query.

Jake got his mouth open, nothing came out, and he turned and left the room. At least, he told himself, he hadn't made that stupid squeaking noise like the time when he was thirteen and he'd tried to ask out Jill Barker, fourteen years old and so much older and wiser and gorgeous.

He'd been short still, at that point, and when she'd turned around his nose had been nearly even with her chest. Jake didn't get a date with her that day, either.

~~~

The next time Jake walked in to the living area he found Cougar, Pooch, and Roque sitting around a table playing cards. Jake paused, mostly because he hadn't recovered his personal finances from last night's game yet and nobody was taking his IOUs anymore. He hovered in the doorway, not wanting to risk saying something incredibly _moronically_ stupid in front of Pooch or Roque -- or Cougar, possibly especially Cougar. But that left him not sure what he _should_ say. He ended up standing there, as motionless as a complete idiot who couldn't force himself to do what should have been a very simple thing, and finally turned and walked out without saying a word.

He heard Roque asking "What the hell was that about?" but Jake got far enough down the hallway quickly enough that he didn't hear anybody's response.

~~~

There was nothing to compare to the look of disdain one got from a twelve year old girl who was failing to be impressed. Jake's niece, Beth, had her arms folded as she looked at him via the not-so-lame-as-to-use-Skype-thank-you-I-can-hack-my-own window, and shook her head.

Jake tried not to drop his head into his hands and hide. "I tried," he said, and he truly did hate the way he sounded, whining and idiotic, because surely he would have gotten better at this by his age. At thirteen, or even sixteen, nobody expected a guy to be smooth and debonair, especially if the guy was wearing glasses and carrying around shortwave radio manuals and a gameboy that had been turned into a satellite receiver. But now, surely he ought to have some idea how to do this without resorting to _this._

Beth sighed, the sound of it coming through loud and clear through the connection from half a world away. "You were supposed to ask him. We _rehearsed_ this."

"I know! Believe me, the memory of those rehearsals is etched into my brain. I'm very grateful you didn't make me dress up like the last time," he added, though to be fair, last year they'd been rehearsing for Beth's part in the school play. It had been written by her fifth grade class and Jake had been the fairy grandmother to Beth's superheroine. She'd been dressed in an awesome, rocking outfit complete with sensible ass-kicking boots and magic cape. Jake tried not to think about the shawl he'd borrowed and the granny glasses Beth had insited he wear in order to help her get a feel for her scene.

"Do you want me to text him? You can make it look like it's coming from your phone," Beth offered, again. It had been the second plan she'd come up with after Jake had failed at Plan A the first three times.

"No. I'm not sure Cougar knows how to read texts, or even if he realises he owns a cellphone." Jake sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair. "OK, I can do this. I can just walk up to him and say--" Jake felt his brain freeze, which was at least better than some of the lame lines he'd heard come out of his mouth in the past.

He didn't know if he should be grateful or not that something about Cougar made it impossible for him to say a single word, rather than how he got around the ladies he'd tried throwing passes at with what always turned out to be some of the stupidest pick-up lines in the entire history of guys trying to get laid.

It probably had something to do with knowing if he screwed up, Cougar would still be right there the next day, willing and able to kick Jake's ass if he felt Jake needed it. A healthy dose of fear kept him from saying his usual stupid shit, but it kept him from saying any of the halfway decent stuff Beth had tried feeding him.

"You tell him you like him," Beth coached. As if it were that easy.

Jake glared at her. "And how many boys have you asked out?" he asked, then realised what the hell he was asking and he waved his hands frantically at the computer screen. "DO NOT answer that! You are too young and I don't want to hear it and I'll tell your mother if you mention any names!"

Beth was just rolling her eyes at him, looking so much like her mother that Jake could see his sister, laughing at him and scolding him all in the same breath. "I haven't asked any boys out, Uncle Jake, because there are only lame-dork boys at my school and I don't like any of them. But I know how to ask and it isn't that hard."

Jake rolled his eyes right back at her, because he knew, chances were she would have inherited the same Jensen genes and would, if there was any justice in the world, end up spilling a milkshake all over the cute boy she wanted to impress and babbling something about her mother paying his dry-cleaning and did he like hamburgers. Not that he wanted his niece to be a miserable geek through high school like he'd been, but at least that would prevent her from having a boyfriend at all, which would let _him_ sleep better at night.

"So, you go up to him," Beth said, outlining the plans he'd failed to carry out for the last several weeks. "You say--" she waited, then nodded to let him know that was his cue.

Jake sighed. "I say, 'Cougar, I like you. I like-like you." They'd argued over the wording, and Jake had finally agreed that sometimes simpler was better.

"Good," Beth said, smiling widely. "And then?"

"Then I say, 'Would you like to go on a date with me?'" Which, Jake knew, he would never, ever, in his entire life manage to actually say out loud. But he might manage the first bit, then hopefully Cougar would get the rest without Jake actually risking saying more words that would lead to inane babbling and shooting himself in the foot.

Beth nodded enthusiastically. "And then Uncle Carlos says...?" she asked, and Jake just scowled, because how the hell did he know what Cougar was going to think about the fact Jake was hot for him, deeply in love, a little, and wanted nothing more than to spend the night licking places that he didn't want to even be thinking while he was talking to his niece?

"Sounds good to me," Cougar said from behind him, and Jake sat stock-still for a moment before letting his head fall forward, onto the desk, where he banged it a few times.

"You set me up," he said.

"I saw him come into the room behind you," Beth admitted. "You've been messing this up for five weeks, now, Uncle Jake. Somebody had to do _something._ "

"What did you-- No, I don't want to know. Please do not tell me you two planned this." He didn't think he could get away with strangling Cougar in his sleep, if only because if he had the chance to be near Cougar in his sleep, then hopefully they were still naked and Jake would feel too relaxed to kill anybody.

Part of his brain got very distracted at the idea of Cougar naked, so he almost missed hearing Beth say, "Well, Aunt Jolene said that Pooch agreed--"

Jake whipped his head up, glaring at her. "You did _not_ talk to Pooch and Jolene about this!"

Beth just looked surprised, and a little worried. Jake tried to wipe some of the anger off his face. "Uncle Franklin said it would be OK," she said hesitantly, and Jake felt all of his blood rush from his face, into his socks, and he let his head fall once more onto the desk with a hard thump.

"Gracias," he heard Cougar say to Beth, and he felt Cougar reaching over his shoulder towards the keyboard.

"Bye, Uncle Jake! Bye Uncle Carlos! Good luck!" Beth called out, and Jake managed a sick wave as Cougar shut off the call.

Jake waited, but Cougar didn't say anything. Jake banged his forehead again, but it didn't seem to be doing much good. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to believe this was a elaborate prank we set up," Jake muttered.

"You don't want to go on a date?" Cougar asked, but he sounded amused.

"I want...I want to crawl into a hole and die a thousand deaths," Jake said. "I want to fall over and be dead. I am mortified," he explained, waving one hand but not lifting his forehead from the smooth desktop.

"I could arrange a little death," Cougar said, and he no longer sounded _amused._ "La petite mort," he said softly, right in Jake's ear.

Jake shivered, then his brain kicked in all at once and he slowly raised his head, because -- well, he wasn't going to admit to anything, but it sounded like this embarrassing plan of Beth's had worked. He frowned. "Hearing you speak French is always weird," he said, because he was thinking about saying yes, and how fast could they get naked, and as usual his brain wasn't cooperating with him when it came to talking out loud.

With a smile, Cougar said, "Ich will dich jetzt ficken."

Jake sat up. Blinked once or twice. "You're serious?" he asked, because he hadn't really thought this far ahead and while his German was a little rusty, he didn't think it was so bad he didn't recognise the word for fuck. He'd been so wound up over getting himself around to asking that he hadn't even thought about what he would do if Cougar said yes.

Other than a lot of fantasies about licking naked places, which, Jake realised, was a perfectly awesome plan and, it seemed, actually _doable_ now.

He stood up and grabbed Cougar by the hand. "I think I'm going to hold you to that." He dragged Cougar down the hallway, making a mental note to do something about Pooch, Jolene, and Clay and their inability to leave a person alone to make his own moves.

Not that he was going to admit to any gratitude, or anything. Because he would have got around to this.....

Yeah. Maybe he'd steal them all their own personal tanks.


End file.
